Jane behaving badly

POOR Jane Tipple. If it weren't for the throbbing headache keeping her tucked up in bed and the fact that many of the sorry details of the previous evening never even made it into her long-term memory, she could probably explain a good deal of what happened. The raw facts are simple. She drank too much, too quickly. And her brain became utterly intoxicated.

Getting drunk is not as straightforward as it appears. During the course of a binge, your brain becomes a veritable fairground House of Horror-with alcohol at the controls. Neurons flicker on and off, your metabolic rate rises and falls and brain signals get mixed up. As your blood alcohol levels rise, you are slowly drawn upwards along a track of excitement, with alcohol coaxing out the singing, joke-telling, gregarious you.

But as the booze levels start to peak, so do you. It's all downhill from there. ...

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